Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Pitwall perspective A race the length of the Daytona 200 is normally won on technicalities; equipment differences which, though worth only tenths of seconds per lap alone, add up to a spaced-out parade after 200 miles. What shocked the technicians this year is that Cecotto and Roberts turned it into a rider's race, spoiling not a few careful calculations. By Lane Campbe ll Prior to Sunday, the tire situation appeared eu t and dried. The standard-issue Goodyear for the 750s was a 1381 profile ~ Al compound rear and All front. Most every body with mag wh eels was running them tubeless, though a few still had their "wires" and a 18· rubber bladder to hold the air in. Th ese same tires had gone the distance under Gen e Romero last ye ar , with repo rt edly ab out 50 mile s' of tread left. For all p ractical purposes, Goodye ar was there to sell the same "pro du ct io n " supe rspeedway slic ks to eve ry bo dy . At Dun lop, the name of the game was still "catch up" af ter last ye ar's disasters. This year they had a' special KRIll rear and Krl08 front slick for Daytona. "The [wide oval] pro me is the same as our GP (Euro pean) tire . . .it's made in the 'sam e mold ; but the casing is wo un d stiffer to cope with the banking.", is how th ey were described b y a Dunlop engineer . Compounds were too new to have a number. Af ter early designation practice , th e Dunlop-equipped folk began sporting a zig-zag' pattern cu t wi th a grooving iron on the right side only. This was because the two righ t-ha nders in the infield . bei ng the slowest comers on the circu it , never got the right side of t he tire hot enough to work properl y . Hence the groove - to make t hat side heat up more quickly and provide a. slight · extra bite. Steve Baker, who tested for Dunlop at an earlier track session, probably summed it up fo r most riders when he said, "The Dunlop 's a good tire now , and fme for cool weather (co ld weather being something of a bugaboo to ' slick tire users, again because they don't heat up en ough to work pro perly), but they get slippery in real hot weather or on a hot track." Since it stayed quite warm d uring t he week, eventually 61 of the 80 sta rters had chosen Goodyears. (No tab ly Cecotto and Sheene, who both practiced on Dunlops but qualifi ed on Goodyears; and Pa trick Pons, who quali fied on Dunlops with a sick eng ine, bu t race d on Goodyears to fift h overall. ]. Tw o minor problems pl ague d u sers 0 1 bo t h brands. The tubeless co vers tended to slip around the ri m, as much as n in e inches, under stress. Sh eene 's an d Cecotto 's crews were solvin g t his w ith she et metal screws in to the bead; though one pitman sp eculated t hat sin ce the casi n gs were so muc h stiffer than normal, tire chang ers wer e . using ex tr a oily lubricant to get them on the rims and unwittingly contributing to the problem. . The other mare was t he tenden cy of rubber to flake off to th e o u tside during moderate co rn erin g co mbined with h ard . acceleration, rolling up in to a loose bead at th e outside of the we ar area; j ust eno ugh to generate a hair-raisin g slide when t he rider would lay t he bike o ver t ha t little bit extra. Everybody wh o noticed it said it just m ade for, more deliberate cau tion while ridin g. An ybody who didn 't notice it q uick ly en ou gh fell off. When it came to race day, the tire techs expected a clear leader to emerge and circulate in the co m fo rtab le 2:07s or 2:08s fo r th e dis tance . Instead, Cecotto and Roberts t urned it into a scratching duel thaI further sava ged Kenny's knees and wore a hole in one of Cecotto's expansion cha mber s. It was later claimed that the two were constantly running in the 2:0 2-2 :0 3 range and that Roberts unofficially went under two minutes in one lap. By mid-race, after checkin g wear in the fir st round of gas stops. the Goodyear people go t worried. At the second fueling, their me asurements showed that the lead three were in defmite tire trouble ; Kanaya's being the worst . . Minu tes later the fres h tires came up on the pit wall and it was decided to bring Kanay a and Roberts in for ano t he r tire ch eck and possibly fresh tires . They app are n tly waved off the first pit signals, reluctant to stand down for a tire cha nge . It took two more lap s for the problem to drive itself home to both riders; then Kanay a was brought in first, because the las t tire check had revealed that his would not go as many laps as Roberts'. Un fo rtunate ly , it took too long to ge t Kan ay a to co me in and get him out; the extra lap s did Roberts' re ar tire in completely, co st in g th e extra time it too k to wobble in from th e chican e. man Gary Nixon Second-place repo rt ed h is re ar tire b egin ning to skate aro,!nd in the closing lap s, while Pat Hennen fo und his front tire nearl y gone. Heavy braking or a fro n t en d with a tendency to push ? A parade of walking wounded With no one on the same lap with Cecotto , less than half the field was ninn ing at the fm ish . No table among the walkers : Pat Evan s - " I ca me into this tum, kinda go t sucke d in and went outside , hit something o n the track and the front end washed ou t . " Ron Pierce - " The shift lever broke, and while I was waiting fo r thf'm to replace it, the clutch went ". He wa s a comfortable tenth at the time. Gary Fisher lost several minutes as his crew adjusted his clutch ; and Hurley Wilvert's clutch put him out on the first lap . Ran dy Cleek had wasted two engines in practice, wa s th e last rider to qualify before' the final session closed, and went from 30th on the grid to eighth at the finish. The air vent bottle refused to pass air during Kevin Stafford's fu el stop, forcing the Vesco crew into alm ost a minute, of jiggling and sloshing to get a full load in. By contrast, the vent tube on Bob Endicott 's Yamaha was working too well , sp raying the inside of his windscreen and top of his tank with premix . With periodic fran tic wiping by his crew , he went on to finish eleventh . Pit wa gs got a lau gh out of a "Help Wanted" sign ' earlier in the week,solicitin g a none-too-bright pi t man for Steve McLaughlin. But on race day, it was Larry Bleil who knocked his pit board ho lder SPrawling (and fell off, hi mself) coming in for his first gas stop . An ambu1ance rushed over to che ck possible injuries to the mechanic and effectively blo cked Larry 's way out. He cooked his clutch before the wa y was clear, retiring around mid-race. And near the end, after a fantastic rid e, Barry She ene's chain parted in th e infield . Barry ha d been riding with an o u t-of-t he-box TR7 50 en gine all we ek, and co m mented later, " I wish I knew then wh at I know n o w" , referring to his horsepower disadvantage. What happened to Gary Scott? Gary , in his first full outing o n th e George Murray /Win dy Briggs prepared Yamaha, miss ed some early practice due to rain, and spent the rest o f the wee k with basi c sorting out. He st ar te d ou t usin g Boge/Mulholland shocks wound with 80· 13 2 sp rin gs and tu be less Good years. . He stuck with th e .q u a li fi e d at a G o o d y e ar s , none -to o-t hri lling 2 :12.70, 25 t h on e grid, during Thursday 's q ualifying session. By Friday , he'd swi tched to S&W shocks saying th at pretty well cured a high speed wobble on the banking (most riders said when at spe ed, you were riding virtually an unsprung mo torcycle there) . Friday afternoon , Gary was quite p leased to be circ u lat ing in .the 2: 12s with a stiff breeze buffeting everybody abo ut (most ti mes were ' in th e 2 :13-2 :15 range) . At final session's end, a Good year tire tech wa lked up and advised Gary he 'd pretty well worn out his rear tire. It's still unclear wh ether he was still on that tire or scuffing in a new ' one when he crashed Saturday morning in practice, fracturing bones in his left hand. Doctor s refused to re lease him for Sunday 's ra ce. and that was that. •

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